If efforts are not made to prevent further vandalism, much of the heritage of Timbuktu could be lost in a similar way to the Bamiyan Buddhas some years ago. Once an item is destroyed, it will never be there again – a later recreation can never replace all the detail & the stories that associated themselves with it.

It is worth remembering that the people who are making these actions – against items that have been there for many years – are not representative of Islam, but represent a small extremist minority. At the time this article was written, I was in the South of Morocco – in a little town called M’Hamid at the end of the surfaced road on the fringes of the Sahara. In Morocco, as in Mali, there is a strong tradition of Sufi sites that are revered – but there, it seems to be tolerated & integrated into the country’s culture with few problems – it is something that has always been like that for as long as people can remember & is accepted as an integral part of their religion.

From:
Guardian

Will anyone save Timbuktu from Islamist tomb raiders?
Jonathan Jones
Monday 2 July 2012

Militant fundamentalists are destroying the Malian town’s legacy with pickaxes. Someone must step in to stop this atrocity

What a sick joke. I wrote in the Guardian today about lost art. But looking at the news, I see that some of the world’s great treasures are being destroyed, lost forever, at this moment.

In Timbuktu in Mali, great art is being attacked right now, as if it were an enemy. It is being assaulted, smashed, assailed. The aim is total destruction. The same brand of militant Islamism that deprived the world of the Buddhas of Bamiyan is now being turned on medieval tombs that are among the wonders of Africa.
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